Pro-Chancellor and Chair of Council

Lord Roger Liddle, Pro-Chancellor

The Pro-Chancellor is the chair of the University's governing body, the Council, providing it with leadership and, as Chair, he is ultimately responsible to the stakeholders for the effectiveness of Council.

Roger Liddle, Lord Liddle of Carlisle, has been Pro Chancellor of Lancaster University since July 2013. Roger is a Labour member of the House of Lords and serves on its European Union Select Committee. He is currently also Co-Chair of the international progressive think tank, Policy Network.

Born in 1947, Roger was brought up in Carlisle, attended grammar school there, and won a scholarship to The Queen’s College Oxford where he read History and Management Studies. In a varied career in politics and public life, he served in 10 Downing St as Europe adviser to Tony Blair from 1997-2004. From 2004-7 he was adviser in the European Commission, working successively for the Trade Commissioner and the then President, Jose Manuel Barroso. From 2008-10, he worked closely with the First Secretary of State, Peter Mandelson on industrial policy.

He has authored several books including The Europe Dilemma: Britain and the Drama of EU Integration (IB Tauris 2014) and The Risk of Brexit (Ronan and Littlefield 2015). Roger is married to Caroline Thomson, formerly Deputy Director General of the BBC and the current Chair of Oxfam. They have one son and live in Abbeytown, Cumbria and London. Roger represents Wigton on Cumbria County Council.

He commented: "I am thrilled to take on this role. Universities have been one of the most notable British success stories since the great expansion that began in the 1960s: as part of that wave of expansion, Lancaster has proved an outstanding success both in research and the quality of its student experience. It is a privilege to play a part in sustaining Lancaster's record of excellence and dynamism, as a key player in, and contributor to, the North West and a potentially world class academic institution".